Team Minato vs Paperwork
by LullabyKnell
Summary: Minato loves his team. He really does. It's just that Team Seven's legacy of being unable to hand in normal paperwork on time is strong in the new generation and it's awful. It's just so awful. And at this rate, he's going to become a hermit like his sensei.
1. Nohara Rin

**Author's Note:** Okay, first thing is that this is _crack._ This fic and all the fics in this series (the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series) fall firmly under Ridiculous Nonsense, even if there turned out to be a whole bunch more world-building and character development than originally intended. I do not actually think Konoha or the Elemental Countries work this way, though it'd be really funny if they did. It is for fun and meant to be funny, so let's leave crit and sensible solutions at the door.

The "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series originally started as some fun daydreams about how much nonsense poor Saturobi Hiruzen probably had to put up with as a jounin-sensei. Somehow, this evolved into a generation-spanning fic series about a Curse-That-Is-Not-A-Curse and ninja being incapable of anything but nonsense. **"Team Minato vs. Paperwork" is Part 3** in this series, though each installment can stand by itself.

 **The previous story in the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series is "Team Jiraiya vs. Paperwork"** , which I do recommend reading first (along with the prequel to that, because I think I'm hilarious), featuring Jiraiya of the Sannin having to deal with Namikaze Minato as a genin, along with his two very artistically inclined teammates.

This work was originally posted to my AO3 account.

Tags on AO3: Humor, Paperwork, Konoha Village, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Crack, Explicit Language, Swearing, Wordcount: 1000-5000, Crack

* * *

TEAM MINATO VS. PAPERWORK

* * *

Minato loves his team. He really does.

It's just that Team Seven's legacy of being unable to hand in normal paperwork on time is strong in the new generation and it's awful. All his prayers that the third time would be the charm were clearly discarded by the higher powers, probably because watching the chaos is very entertaining for them. Either that or it's all just returned bad energy for Minato taking his entire genin career to realize that he needed to keep spare paper on his desk instead of using his mission reports for brainstorming.

He's begged his sensei never to tell Kushina all his embarrassing genin stories, because she'll never let him live any of them down, but Jiraiya only laughed and pointed out that all of Konoha probably remembers Minato running through the village from hordes of desk shinobi, screaming at the top of his lungs. And if _anyone_ is going to tell his girlfriend about that stuff, Jiraiya often says while grinning wickedly, then it's goddamn going to be the jounin-sensei who had to suffer through it.

It's like... like... the universe has just collectively decided that the jounin-sensei of Team Seven must suffer uncontrollable children and abnormal paperwork. Somewhere, where there is a book of the universe's written rules, and that's one of them.

Konoha has obviously collectively decided the same, since there's only been two other Team Sevens since the Legendary Sannin – Jiraiya's and now Minato's. Other jounin-sensei just refuse to take a Team Seven, no matter who's on it, so they just skip that number while forming teams now and it's not out of respect. It's a tradition made purely out of fear. Unless there's a previous Team Seven member as jounin-sensei, Team Seven _does not exist._

Minato hadn't been deterred originally. He didn't believe in curses and he was optimistic about his team. After all, he'd had Kakashi with him for ages and, while he didn't read over any of Kakashi's mission reports, Kakashi was pretty zealous about being a proper shinobi. And the other two seemed nice. One of them was an Uchiha and Uchiha were sometimes, terrifyingly, even more zealous about being proper shinobi than Kakashi is.

He hadn't expected any problems.

And for his foolish optimism, Kushina is still laughing at him.

* * *

oOo

* * *

First, there's Rin.

Dear, sweet, thoughtful Nohara Rin.

Top of her class in the Academy, Rin has a kind and selfless nature, plus excellent penmanship! Who would have expected that there'd be any problems from her? Minato certainly hadn't expected any paperwork problems from Rin.

Somehow he'd foolishly completely forgotten his genin team at their very beginning, when Hanako had still been pretending to be quiet and normal before she very suddenly wasn't. But in Minato's defense, it was hard for the mind to link the latter and current Hanako with any semblance of normal. With that difference, it was no wonder that his kunoichi teammate had made tokubetsu-jounin on her infiltration skills alone, although she claims her promotion was all thanks to her study of a new form of interpretative dance.

At least, unlike Hanako, Rin doesn't mean to cause trouble.

(Or incite Creative Spirit Revolution or whatever in the world Hanako insists she's doing.)

Rin is _very_ easily stressed and being a shinobi is a very high-stress occupation. And while Rin's performance doesn't suffer at all under stress – in fact, Minato's pretty sure that stress actually multiplies Rin's capabilities exponentially, though he hasn't got the data to prove it – she still needs an outlet for all the stress that her occupation collects.

So she does origami, just as a fun little hobby. Rin learned the art at a young age from her mother, who had learned it from her mother and so on, and Rin is very, _very_ good at it. Give her a few pieces of paper and Rin can make almost anything out of them, from little animals to a detailed Hokage Monument. She's wowed Obito, who compliments her profusely and keeps a collection of her pieces on his windowsill, and Kakashi, who doesn't say anything but does the same thing, several times with her vast skill.

Minato thought it was cute at first.

The problem is that folding paper is so ingrained in Rin that if she's not writing on the paper, she does it automatically. She can't be allowed to carry scrolls in her hands because they become little sculptures and she doesn't even notice until someone else points it out, even if they were running for their lives at the time.

Once, he went off to make dinner for his team and when he came back to the living room, Rin had turned half of his junk mail fliers on the coffee table into paper cranes. She hadn't even noticed and just kept telling some story about spending time trailing medic-nins, while Obito and Kakashi stared incredulously at her fast-moving fingers and the growing pile of cranes.

He once told Rin to fetch a take-out menu and was handed a paper toad.

They can't use napkins at restaurants because Rin just somehow takes them over the course of the meal and suddenly there's paper popsicles by the condiments.

It doesn't _seem_ compulsive or anything; Rin doesn't _need_ to fold paper and won't start twitching there's paperwork on the table that he won't let her have. She doesn't go after his fuinjutsu notes, probably because she can sense the river of tears that'll happen according to Kushina, or his books. It's just that it's an automatic habit to burn off stress for her, and so it just... happens. A lot.

According to the Psychology Department when Minato asked them, having caught them headed out of their offices armed with hunter-nin nets and knock-out tags, there are _far_ worse stress-relieving habits for shinobi to have and they have _far_ worse shinobi to worry about. Seriously, did he have _any idea_ how hard it was to just _get_ ANBU to make an appearance at their scheduled therapy sessions? Just unfold the freakin' paper.

But the real problem with Rin handing in little paper trees and complex paper flowers, having unconsciously and automatically folded her mission reports as soon as she's done writing them, is that no one has the slightest clue how to undo them. No one has a problem with the idea of undoing her work, even if it's cute and very well-made, it's just that the average shinobi actually _can't._

The origami that Rin and her mother practice is apparently an old family technique, one that no one else knows and therefore one that no one else can undo. Minato _tried_ once and ended up holding a complex mess that couldn't be pulled any farther without ripping the whole thing to pieces.

He's sure that Rin writes very nice reports, though, under all that folding.

Rin makes the impossible puzzle boxes of origami.

The Head Desk-Shinobi, the same man who held the position while Jiraiya was dealing with Minato's Team Seven (Minato distinctly remembers that one time the man came to hand back one of Taiki's unacceptable mission reports to Jiraiya and broke down crying on Minato's sensei) and whose name Minato doesn't actually know (he's known the man for too long to just come out and ask but nobody ever says it so now Minato's not actually sure the man has one), is not happy with this.

He kidnapped Minato in the middle with a date with Kushina, which Kushina was at first not happy about but ended up just laughing at him for, and brought Minato to Hokage Tower. After a series of tunnels and unfamiliar rooms and passageways, Minato ended up being in a room he'd never seen before and shown a long table with four piles of paper.

The first and largest pile was of Rin's mission reports in their full origami form.

The next pile was of mission reports that someone had tried to unfold, which had ended up as misshapen, half-folded messes that couldn't be unfolded anymore without ruining the report, like some kind of origami dead end. Minato had been relieved that his attempt looked just like these.

The third pile actually just consisted of three reports: one that had been ripped to shreds, one that had been carefully cut to pieces with the pair of scissors sitting right next to it, and a pile of ash that Minato has resolved to never _ever_ ask about.

The fourth pile of reports was second-smallest, with four or five mission reports at most. None of them had been unfolded, and instead likely been cut to pieces by the scissors and then carefully reassembled with a truly fearsome amount of tape. There was a pile of empty tape-dispensers taller than the table itself sitting right next to it.

And right next to that pile, there was a desk-shinobi sobbing loudly while her coworker desk-shinobi, all oddly maudlin, comforted her. "I tried. I tried so _hard_ but I just couldn't _do_ it," she wailed, being held by a man who seemed to be missing patches of his hair and another man who seemed to be wearing tape like full-body bandages.

"There, there, Naoko," said the man who had clearly gotten into a fight with the tape-dispensers and lost. He also patted the back of the other man involved in the hug, whose eyes were also glittering with unshed tears, awkwardly.

"Do you see what _you've done?"_ the Head Desk-Shinobi demanded, wild-eyed.

"Uh," said Minato.

The man grabbed him by the front of his clothes. "We _can't_ undo them. We've tried _everything!"_

"Um," said Minato.

"So you and I are going to your damn _paper-folding_ genin -" Paper-folding was said here as though it was the most despicable of curse words. "- and telling them to _stop it_ right now."

"...Okay?" said Minato, then he realized, "Wait, why are you coming?"

" _Because,_ " the Head Desk-Shinobi spat, "your _sensei_ ignored our warnings and permanently put off telling _his_ genin to stop putting their unacceptable hobby into their mission reports and I am _not_ having _another_ You-Know-Who on my hands!"

Minato, still reeling from being kidnapped in the middle of date-night, was confused. "Who?"

" _Wakahisa Taiki!"_ the Head Desk-Shinobi whispered furiously, as though speaking of the world's most dangerous, deadly, and immorally repulsive missing-nin.

All the desk-shinobi stopped their crying and gasped in unison, then made the sign against evil.

"Desk-Shinobi-sama! Don't _say_ his name!" one hissed fearfully.

Minato, who had never read any of his old teammate's poetry save for that first one that Jiraiya had made him read in a desperate and indirect attempt to stop it, didn't really blame them for it. In the face of his old teammate's enthusiasm, everyone had only hedged around the issue, and Taiki's creativeness and inspiration had only gotten worse since he'd started dating Hanako.

So the Head Desk-Shinobi dragged Minato down to find Rin, who was eating ramen with her teammates. Well, she and Obito were eating, Kakashi, masked as always, had already finished and was poking at the napkin wolf pack in the middle of the table with his chopsticks.

The Head Desk-Shinobi glared hatefully at the napkins.

"Sensei?" Rin asked, confused and concerned. "I thought you were on a date with Kushina?"

"I am, well... I was. It's complicated," Minato answered, trying not to let the minor killing-intent the Head Desk-Shinobi was releasing towards the napkins bother him. "Rin... I'm here with... um... Desk-Shinobi-sama... to talk to you about your... mission reports."

"Oh no, is something wrong with the way I'm writing them?"

"No! No!" Minato insisted, wishing he could do what his sensei had done and just run for it. Rin's big eyes here could give Taiki's sheer enthusiasm a run for its money and Jiraiya's inability to say something made a lot more sense now. "It's... it's not that."

Minato took a deep breath. "Rin, you need to stop folding your mission reports."

"Oh," Rin said. "Okay, sensei. It's kinda unintentional, but I'll try to stop. I guess it's pretty inconvenient for the desk-shinobi, huh?"

In this moment, when the Head Desk-Shinobi and Minato let out sighs of relief, Obito chose to speak up.

"I don't see why she has to stop," he said thoughtfully. "I think it's cool. And can't you just unfold the paper? Rin's origami always brightens my day!"

Rin beamed. "Thanks, Obito!"

Minato had no answer for that, because he had to use the Hiraishin to get the Head Desk-Shinobi out of there before one of his genin got the full wrath of an incensed desk-shinobi.

The Head Desk-Shinobi, after all, is the strongest and most powerful of them, and Minato has only managed to face him before while running with his mission reports with Jiraiya's help. The Head Desk-Shinobi is a career-chuunin, but _good god,_ not for lack of skill _._

"Maybe her parents can help?" Minato suggested.

Rin's parents didn't help. Minato and the Head Desk-Shinobi met with Rin's father because her mother had been out at the market. They stared at the extremely realistic paper vases full of equally realistic paper flowers, and each been halfway through a cup of tea before they realized that their teacups were also paper, just that special hydrophobic sort that the calligraphy store sold - the same high-end place where Minato got most of his nicer fuinjustsu supplies.

Minato's certain that at least the curtains and the bookshelves were also origami, and the table and the lamps weren't, but he's still not sure about the chair he was sitting on and the coffee table he saw.

"There's no way to stop them," Rin's father, a retired medic-nin, told them blankly, without even hearing what Minato and the Head Desk-Shinobi were there for. "They can't control it. Oh, they'll try their best, but they can't really. It's like their hands aren't attached to their brains. You can't make her stop."

"How do you unfold them then?" the Head Desk-Shinobi demanded. "I'll pay you."

Rin's father just stared at them for a long moment.

"Sir," Rin's father said finally, "I love my wife and I love my daughter, but I am still a sane man... and I am drinking out of a paper teacup right now. Do you really think that I have any idea how to undo any of the mess that I am currently in?"

So they haven't been able to get Rin to stop and there's apparently no way to make her stop. The Head Desk-Shinobi went back to give his subordinates the bad news, and Minato was left to deal with an angry Kushina who, upon being told the story, laughed at him for five minutes straight.

The only solution, obviously, was to find someone who could unfold Rin's work.

Only Rin's mother is completely oblivious and insists that she's perfectly happy with her current occupation, and isn't her darling girl's work beautiful? And the origami that Rin and her mother know can apparently only be taught from mother to daughter - "It's a family secret, you know!" - and no amount of begging from the desk-shinobi is changing Rin's mother's mind. She thinks this is all some sort of joke and said, "Aren't the ninja so funny, darling?"

"Hilarious," Rin's father replied flatly.

Minato had thought they were doomed until he realized something: Rin had attended the Academy. So he immediately flashed off to the Academy to beg for help from the Academy teachers. Rin had been top of her class, so either they knew how to stop her from making origami or knew how to undo it. (Or had just given up and given her top marks, but Minato was pretty sure someone would have said something by now if that were true and he's mostly sure Rin's not that sneaky.)

It turned out that Rin's stress had slowly developed over the course of her Academy education, so the Academy teachers had had the time to slowly adjust as Rin started to hand in origami, then increasingly complex pieces of origami. By Rin's graduation, two Academy teachers had mastered the art of unfolding her paperwork. The proud man and woman both beamed as they related this accomplishment to Minato.

But they won't help.

Minato learned that day that there is a bitter rivalry between the Academy teachers and the desk-shinobi. The Academy teachers would give up their secrets in the ancient art of nin-children-wrangling over their dead bodies, and the Head Desk-Shinobi would ask the Academy teachers for assistance sometime shortly after absolutely never. It boggled Minato's mind, but neither party let up or explained _why_ there was a feud between them in the first place.

Surely Academy teachers and desk-shinobi worked together frequently?

Minato went to the Sandaime Hokage to ask what the hell was going on, only for his sensei's sensei to sigh heavily and start telling a very long story about a forbidden romance between a young Academy student-teacher and a promising junior desk-shinobi. It was a sad tale, full of lost chances and bad luck, and it ended in unspeakable tragedy and a deep feud between two of Konoha's factions.

It made annual team assignment, the Hokage said with another heavy sigh, something akin to hell. It had taken him many long years of negotiation and parley for there to be an uneasy cease-fire between the Academy teachers and the desk-shinobi. Should Minato insist that the teachers undo Rin's origami for the desk-shinobi, it could lead to a return to open feuding once more, and plunge Konoha back into that hellish time they had only so recently recovered from.

"... _What,_ " Minato said finally.

The Sandaime sighed again and summarized things into a few points. Firstly, the Head Desk-Shinobi and Head of the Academy used to date and it's like the entire Academy and all the desk-shinobi had a massive, really bad breakup. Secondly, if Minato started that shit again, the Sandaime was leaving it entirely to him to fix – Saturobi Hiruzen was _not_ going through that crap again.

So... no help from the Academy teachers.

For awhile, Minato kept on being kidnapped at random intervals by the Head Desk-Shinobi to help the Secret Room of Desk-Shinobi unfold Rin's mission reports, as was apparently his responsibility as jounin-sensei. No time or place, save being on actual missions, was safe for Minato. They took him from the market, in the middle of training, in the middle of _sparring_ with other jounin, in the middle of _meetings_ with the Hokage, and, worst of all, in the middle of date-night.

Kushina stopped thinking things were hilarious really fast. She got annoyed.

Minato feared for all of Konoha then.

And then, suddenly, he stopped getting kidnapped and Kushina looked _really_ smug.

Minato was _terrified_.

Kushina told him not to worry about it and he was even more terrified and getting increasingly high-pitched, so she finally sighed and brought him to the Secret Room of Desk-Shinobi. Instead of it being burnt to the ground like he'd feared, it was now set up with a long table with people seated in chairs at each end, surrounded by cheering shinobi.

At one end sat Nara Shikaku, a man one promotion short of Jounin Commander who basically did the job already, and the old cafeteria man who made the really fantastic baked goods they served on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the shinobi mess hall – and who was also ex-hunter-nin, but that wasn't important next to his baked goods. Half of Minato's motivation for the Hiraishin, he could swear, was so he could always be first in line for those.

Both men were trying to undo Rin's mission reports and almost seemed to be succeeding until they both reached one of those dead ends and their papers immediately ripped into pieces.

"DAMN IT!" Shikaku yelled, and Minato had never seen the generally lazy man so into... well... anything. "Get me another one!"

"I, unfortunately, have to be back for my cafeteria shift," the old man said, standing up and giving Shikaku a bow. Shikaku immediately got to his feet and bowed back, as though acknowledging a truly worthy opponent, before dropping back into his seat.

The old man's seat, on the other hand, was filled by none other than Yamanaka Inoichi, the newly-appointed Head of T&I.

"You're going _down,_ Shikaku," Inoichi announced grandly, accepting a piece of paper from a shinobi that was definitely part of the Research Department, while one of the Hokage's secretaries and a random desk-shinobi swept up the ripped mission reports.

"In your _dreams,_ Inoichi," Shikaku drawled, accepting his own origami mission report.

A random ANBU stepped out of the crowd and said blandly, "Ready?"

"Yes," Shikaku said.

" _Absolutely,_ " Inoichi agreed.

"On your mark. Get set. Go," the ANBU said.

Both men started slowly unfolding and the crowd went wild.

"...I don't get it," Minato said.

Kushina sniffed and crossed her arms. "Well I got tired of having date-night interrupted," she said frankly. "All your free time is mine and _you_ weren't fixing anything, so I had to do something about it, y'know? I talked to Desk-Shinobi-sama -"

Minato started to think then that no one actually knows the man's name.

"- and he agreed that you're completely useless and he'd let you off the hook if I could get someone else to help with the reports. No Nara can resist a brain puzzle and Shikaku's actually solved one -"

" _What?"_

"- but the cafeteria guy uncle got three of them, so Shikaku's determined to beat that. And Inoichi loves puzzles and absolutely _refuses_ to be unable to match Shikaku, y'know? And then the rest of them just started showing up. Except Academy teachers, who are banned for some stupid reason," Kushina explained, then she made a harrumphing sound. "The desk-shinobi had to move their Secret Room of Desk-Shinobi, but I'll find it again; if they think just _moving_ is going to stop them from getting pranked then they need to think again!"

Minato just stared at her, then back to the crowd of cheering shinobi, then back to Kushina.

"I love you so much," he said.

She patted his arm fondly and replied, "Damn straight."

And Minato had thought it was over then. Rin was still turning in origami mission reports, yes, but that didn't matter! He didn't have to deal with them, since he can't read them until they've been unfolded, and the desk-shinobi weren't bothering him to do something about it since, thanks to Kushina, Shikaku was leading the Command Department and Inoichi was leading the T&I Department to do the job for him.

Even putting the ruined reports back together is apparently an interesting brain puzzle.

But then came the downside that Minato hadn't expected: the only thing that anyone will talk to him about now is Rin's origami mission reports. Paperwork; all his conversations are now about paperwork, and there's nothing he can do about it besides going missing-nin or becoming a hermit like sensei.

It's like nobody's accomplishments against Rin's origami counts until they've told Minato.

Minato goes to the market and gets told by a shinobi that they think they got two-thirds of a way through a paper fish. They really _almost_ had it, you know.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Minato goes to the shinobi mess hall to get the old hunter-nin's baked goods, and he always gets smugly informed that the future Jounin Commander still hasn't matched the record and that it's apparently driving Shikaku nuts.

Minato goes to the Jounin Standby Station and suddenly someone's recounting, fold by fold, how they _finally_ managed to unfold half of a paper cow. They're still working on the other half, of course, but they think they'll have it if they unfold the rest in this particularly pattern. Does Minato want to hear their theory?

No, no, Minato does not want that.

But that doesn't apparently stop anyone.

ANBU keep breaking into his apartment to either leave unfolded reports on his counter or to verbally report, as though to the Hokage of a dangerous S-rank mission, their progress.

Uchiha Fugaku found Minato training once to consult him about a particularly tricky paper crow.

Minato was once called to the Hokage's Office, was told it was an _emergency,_ and then, when he appeared in a flash of light, fearing for the Sandaime's life, got casually asked by his sensei's sensei if he might have any idea how to refold some of this paper monkey. The Sandaime was deeply concerned that he'd taken the wrong path somewhere along the line, and that if he proceeded further, he might unfold himself into a dead end again.

Minato nearly screamed.

After a particularly long-winded account from a hospital medic-nin, from which Minato only escaped because of an imminent meeting with his team, he knows he looks a bit worn. Kushina's taken to calling it 'frazzled' and says he needs to learn how to be ruder to people.

This time, it seems he looks particularly frazzled, because his team is looking at him with open concern. Well, Kakashi and Rin are; Obito is late again.

"Sensei, are you alright?" Kakashi asks.

Minato shakes his head at the same time that he replies, "Yes, yes, I'm fine."

Kakashi and Rin exchange a look.

"Here, sensei," Rin says, stepping forward with a smile and pressing something into his hand. "To brighten up your day!"

Minato looks down in his hand at the little paper sun.

He very carefully does not scream.

* * *

oOo

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This fic is finished and chapters will be posted daily until it's complete. There will be 3 chapters.


	2. Uchiha Obito

**Author's Note:** **The previous story in the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series is "Team Jiraiya vs. Paperwork"** , which I do recommend reading first (along with the prequel to that, because I think I'm hilarious), featuring Jiraiya of the Sannin having to deal with Namikaze Minato as a genin, along with his two very artistically inclined teammates.

* * *

TEAM MINATO VS. PAPERWORK

* * *

Second, there's Obito.

Like Rin, he really doesn't mean to cause trouble.

It's just that he's cursed.

Minato still doesn't believe in curses, though. He still believes that there's no curse on every Team Seven to have hellish paperwork for the jounin-sensei, just that there's been a series of unfortunate coincidences and a very small pool of teams to draw evidence from. Curses are illogical and impossible, except... Minato's searched for every other possible explanation to understand what's happening with Obito and nothing is forthcoming.

Obito isn't exactly your average Uchiha, but he's still determined to be an amazing shinobi and he knows that for that you have to do your paperwork. So Obito writes his mission reports without complaint. Minato's read some of them and, while they're a little heavy on the exclamation marks and complaining about Kakashi, there's nothing actually wrong with them.

Nothing that would make the desk-shinobi revolt like Obito's teammates' paperwork might.

And yet the papers that Obito hands in at the Mission Assignment Desk, though usually legible, are somehow burnt, soaked, ripped, sliced, stabbed, stepped on, crushed, or covered in anything ranging from fruit juice to cake batter to human blood – several of these at once sometimes.

Somewhere between the Uchiha Compound and the Hokage Tower, something _always_ happens to Obito's mission report. His report goes from a perfectly average mission report to something that might be comparable to the things Minato's sensei claims his female teammate used to hand in to their sensei.

The desk-shinobi are not happy about this.

The Head Desk-Shinobi, who thanks to Rin has somehow become enough of an acquaintance for Kushina to invite the man around to a meal once or twice a month (and Minato _still_ hasn't found out if the man has a name yet), has personally expressed his displeasure with these reports. It is his esteemed opinion that his desk-shinobi should not have to accept mission reports using tongs so they don't have to touch them, and also that Kushina's cooking is as delightful as always.

Minato didn't approach Obito about it, because he knew the boy was trying his best. It was in Obito's nature to do his absolute best, and in Nature's nature to apparently send black cats and helpless little old ladies in Obito's path during his attempts.

Instead, Minato went out to do some reconnaissance on his own to find out what was happening to Obito's mission reports and see what could be done for him. Yes, Minato went out to stalk a child, but he had to see what the trip between the Uchiha Compound and the Hokage Tower was like for Obito without interfering. Letting Obito know that Minato was watching would be interference, so... stalking.

But for a good cause.

Namely: Minato not being on worse terms with the Head Desk-Shinobi than he already was and currently is.

As it turned out, the Uchiha Compound is quite far from the Hokage Tower, leaving much potential for many things to happen to poor Obito on his valiant journey. And, as it turned out, many things did happen to poor Obito on his valiant journey, as though the universe was specifically attempting to destroy Obito's mission report at all costs.

Three steps out of the Uchiha compound, Obito was accosted by one of his cousins and his mission report very nearly fell into a puddle. The cousin desperately needed Obito to stop by the market and pick something up for them, and Obito only managed to save his mission report from being soaked by diving for it. The mission report was fine, but Obito got soaked.

So Obito went back into the Uchiha Compound and came out with new clothes, a market list from his cousin, and his mission report. He deftly avoided the puddle this time, but twenty-six steps down the road, he tripped over a cat that suddenly darted out over his feet, and nearly fell into a different puddle instead. Nearly, was the key word there; Obito managed to just miss it, so he and his mission report were only slightly dusty.

Minato glanced back towards the Uchiha Compound and then up towards the Hokage Tower. It hadn't been five minutes or fifty steps and Obito's mission report had nearly been soaked twice. How much more trouble could Obito get into?

Minato watched in amazement as Obito was nearly smacked with a fish by a clumsy civilian on her way back from the market, nearly run over by a bunch of nin-puppies that had broken loose, nearly run over by the Inuzuka chasing the nin-puppies, nearly crashed into by a cart of eggplants while avoiding a cart carrying rice bags, nearly knocked in the head by a flowerpot falling out of a window, and very nearly slipped into a chicken pen after a water barrel was knocked over by children playing tag.

Minato, amazed, had never known that Konoha could be so hazardous.

In the end, Obito's mission report was trampled by the nin-puppies when the Inuzuka managed to chase them back in the other direction. The desk-shinobi on duty looked at the dust and the claw-marks on the paper, accepted it wordlessly, and then glared directly at where Minato was hiding.

At no other time does Obito experience this series of unfortunate events. It is only when he's holding a mission report that all hell seems to break loose on Konoha, that the universe awakens with an instinctual need to ruin Obito's paperwork.

The next time Team Seven had to hand in their mission reports, Minato went to the Uchiha Compound and offered to deliver Obito's since he was 'in the area'. The other Uchiha nearby clearly didn't believe him, but Obito did and handed it over without complaint, obviously happy not to have to take the perilous journey to Hokage Tower.

As Obito's jounin-sensei, Minato was authorized to hand in his student's mission report for him, and it wasn't much trouble for Minato to do it with the Hiraishin. After all, he could get from the Uchiha Compound to the Hokage Tower in, pardon the pun, a flash.

It was only a temporary solution, but with Rin unintentionally causing so much trouble, Minato was just grateful that there was any kind of solution at all.

He ended up inside one of the big bins outside Hokage Tower. Apparently the janitors inside Hokage Tower were thorough and the seal Minato had secretly placed suffered the consequences of this thoroughness. Thankfully, Obito's mission report was fine and only smelled slightly strange when Minato handed it in to the desk-shinobi on duty. There was no need for them to glare like that, and no need for Kushina to laugh like that afterwards.

The next time, Minato went to the Uchiha Compound again and decided to try getting to the Hokage Tower without the Hiraishin. As a shinobi, he could always use exercise, and Minato was fast even without the Nidaime Hokage's jutsu. How much could happen in a single rooftop run?

On the way, Minato nearly got burnt by a stray experimental jutsu that the Research Department was trying, then nearly soaked by a second experimental jutsu to put the first jutsu out.

He also ended up being caught in the crossfire of a drill by the T&I Department for recapturing escaped prisoners, where the escaped prisoner was being graciously played by a cackling Nara Shikaku, who had been 'volunteered' by his old teammate and had no issue using a henge to impersonate other individuals currently running on the rooftops. It was probably revenge on Minato for Shikaku's inability to beat the ex-hunter-nin's origami record, and also just good tactics.

Especially considering that Inoichi, in a symbol of the close friendship between him and the 'escaped prisoner', had issued an 'at all costs, including ruthless violence, actually please use ruthless violence and punch his stupid lazy face in' command to his subordinates.

Obito's mission report took a senbon to its center, Minato had to use the Hiraishin to flash back to his own apartment and start over, and he only managed to make it to Hokage Tower in the end because Akimichi Chouza took pity on him and helped.

"Trying to make up for your teammates?" Minato asked wearily.

Chouza took a few moments to think thoroughly about it.

"No," he answered finally, obviously completely guiltless and utterly content with his place in the universe. "Your efforts are just that sad."

The desk-shinobi were not impressed with the small hole through the center of the paper, but Minato thought he'd done quite well nevertheless. He was never _ever_ going through that again, but he still thought he'd done quite well and deserved to be congratulated, then to go home and curl up in the warm safety of Kushina's arms for the foreseeable future.

After their next mission, Minato brought Obito into the Mission Assignment Room itself, set the boy up with his own table and writing supplies, and told Obito to write his mission report in the safety of the room where he would hand it in. Because if nobody had to make the perilous journey, then the problem would be solved.

Except, ten minutes into Obito writing it, a chuunin came back from their mission covered in mud and, in their disoriented stumble from several days without sleep, tripped into Obito's little desk. The mission report was lost to the mud, the chuunin was very sorry, and Obito had to start over.

The second mission report was ruined within two minutes when an ANBU fell out of the ceiling onto Obito's desk, cursed profusely for a second, and was tackled by another ANBU also appearing out of the ceiling. The two wrestled for half a minute, then realized where they were, and disappeared back into the ceiling again. Obito's report was lost in the confusion.

The third mission report actually got finished. Then a squirrel randomly jumped through the window, attacked Minato's student and made Obito drop his mission report with a yelp, grabbed the paper, and tried to jump back through the window with it. It was stopped when half the Mission Assignment Room, trained never to surrender any of Konoha's valuable and informative paperwork to anyone or anything potentially a foe, threw whatever was in easiest reach to them.

Obito's mission report was impaled by three kunai, four shuriken, two senbon, and a stapler.

The Head Desk-Shinobi was called in and Obito had to rewrite his report.

The worst part was that Obito wasn't even upset about it and optimistically went about rewriting it. Minato guessed that Obito was just pleased that their were witnesses to why he was unable to hand in his mission report and nobody would call him out for making up 'lies for excuses'. Minato mentally revised his previous opinion of Obito's excuses involving squirrels that had it out for him.

Even under careful watch and guard, when the mission report was finished again, a water pipe in the ceiling burst and Obito report was soaked. It had been two hours now and the desk-shinobi wanted Obito gone before something worse happened, so the Head Desk-Shinobi just sighed, said they'd let it dry out, and accepted it before going off to help his subordinates save their precious paperwork from the burst water pipe.

Minato has been informed that Obito is under no circumstances allowed to work near the Mission Assignment Desk ever again. In fact, the Head Desk-Shinobi wrote a special paper for Obito, relieving the boy of ever having to work as a desk-shinobi ever. Obito would actually be arrested if he ever insisted on working a desk.

Minato, who had had to suffer a handful of dreadfully boring desk shifts himself, is extremely envious, but since it isn't appropriate, doesn't say a thing. Kakashi, who had also been forced to take a few of these dull shifts, usually while on forced medical leave for escaping the hospital and pissing off the medic-nins (which was a dumb thing to do for such a supposedly clever kid, because those hospital medic-nins all had mountains of favors owed them and no problem using them for petty revenge), pouted for all of next week.

Minato tried to convince the desk-shinobi to come get Obito's reports themselves, like they'd tried when Minato was a genin, but they wouldn't do it. They had only been so utterly determined to get a report out of Minato because of Taiki and Hanako, and Kakashi and Rin just weren't weird enough for Obito to get the same privileged treatment of being hunted down by determined desk-shinobi.

Also, Minato was fairly certain that they had known at the time what seemed to befall the person who carried Uchiha Obito's mission report and just didn't want to go through the humiliating experience of being run over by rogue Inuzuka nin-puppies or falling into a hive of Aburame insects.

Minato tried the postal system, but mission reports aren't allowed to be submitted through the regular postal system, and the shinobi postal service had actually preemptively banned the current Team Seven from using their services when Minato's sensei was still a genin.

Minato tried to call discrimination on them, but the shinobi postal service countered with their right to refuse service due to 'unsafe working conditions'. Minato, incredulous, then tried to point out that they were a _shinobi_ postal service and danger was a constant part of their working conditions, but the shinobi postal service replied with a polite letter saying that if he wanted to take them to the Hokage or the Council on it, then they would gladly see him in legal, bureaucratic hell if he wanted to contest.

So the only way forward seemed to be through the suffering, except that Minato refused to keep letting Obito go through the Perilous Trip to Hokage Tower, Minato just _could not_ carry the mission report himself again, and no one besides qualified desk-shinobi and the shinobi postal service were allowed by regulation to carry the mission report. Somehow, Minato needed to make the desk-shinobi or post-shinobi come for Obito's report.

So Minato went to the Head Desk-Shinobi and tried pleading, begging, and bribery. But against the fearsome, incorruptable leader of the desk-shinobi, none of these did any good. Minato had to turn to the last option, the option that he had not wanted to use, the option that every shinobi had to use over their lifetime but should never use against their own village: threats.

If the desk-shinobi did not come for Obito's reports, then Minato, who could not do anything against them himself because he just didn't have what it took to win that battle, would show Uzumaki Kushina the horrible things that were befalling Minato's student and tell her that the desk-shinobi refused to help poor Obito.

It was an offer that the Head Desk-Shinobi could not refuse.

Now, the desk-shinobi grudgingly show up to the Uchiha Compound to collect Obito's mission report and stagger back into the Mission Assignment Room slightly scorched or soaked with fruit juice or suffering from whatever incredibly unlikely accident occurred on their journey. Obito's terrible luck, it seems, is amazingly and very specifically selective.

Minato now can't get any paperwork through the Hokage Tower without jumping through hoops of administrative hell as the desk-shinobi get what revenge they can, but for Obito (and for _never_ having to deliver Obito's mission report ever again), it's worth it.

The only thing that Minato has to do now is be very careful to never mention anything about Obito's terrible, curse-like luck to anyone. Jiraiya told him about how Tsunade and the desk-shinobi teamed up to play a decades-long prank on the Sandaime Hokage and convinced him that there was some sort of Senju Conspiracy. (Which there actually was, except it was for a _prank._ ) And how at some point, Saturobi Hiruzen let down his guard enough to get drunk in the shinobi dive bar, then ranted to a friend about his conspiracy theories in the hearing of an Uchiha, and the Uchiha have only very recently stopped vehemently bringing it up.

According to Jiraiya, if the Senju didn't have to turn in acceptable paperwork, then the Uchiha, in protest of unfair privilege, wouldn't hand in any paperwork. They held a silent protest inside Hokage Tower, just sitting there quietly in their dignified way, holding signs with neat and perfect correct slogans, and under the unnerving gaze of a crowd of Sharingan, the desk-shinobi immediately formed a union and then immediately went on strike.

Without the desk-shinobi, Konoha all but went entirely to hell within the week. Apparently this is the only reason Tsunade came clean with her prank. And also probably the explanation as to why Minato's sensei's generation has this strange, reverent respect for desk-shinobi and the work they do.

The Uchiha didn't believe her, probably because she sent her confession in by letter and it was a very red-faced Sandaime who read it aloud, and so the case keeps being re-submitted anonymously in writing through the shinobi postal service (because even Fugaku refuses to bring it up anymore) to the Council, even though the Council just burns it on sight now. The only living Senju has been gone from Konoha for years, but that apparently wasn't the point and wasn't important.

So under _no circumstances_ does Minato believe in curses. None at all.

* * *

oOo

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This fic is finished and chapters will be posted daily until it's complete. There will be 3 chapters.


	3. Hatake Kakashi

**Author's Note:** **The previous story in the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series is "Team Jiraiya vs. Paperwork"** , which I do recommend reading first (along with the prequel to that, because I think I'm hilarious), featuring Jiraiya of the Sannin having to deal with Namikaze Minato as a genin, along with his two very artistically inclined teammates.

* * *

TEAM MINATO VS. PAPERWORK

* * *

Lastly, there's Kakashi.

Minato had been absolutely _sure_ that Kakashi wouldn't be a problem.

He'd had Kakashi with him for years and though he didn't read Kakashi's reports or oversee Kakashi's every mission, Minato knew that Kakashi handed in properly written mission reports perfectly on time. The boy was very serious about being a shinobi precisely to Konoha's Shinobi Code, which included good paperwork, and the desk-shinobi hadn't come to Minato with any problems before.

But apparently things changed in the eyes of the desk-shinobi when Minato became a jounin-sensei and Kakashi was assigned to his genin team, even though the boy was a chuunin. Suddenly Kakashi's paperwork _was_ Minato's responsibility and there _was_ a problem with it.

Kakashi's paperwork was perfect.

 _Too_ perfect.

According to Konoha's Shinobi Code, Konoha-nin are supposed to be a lot of things that a lot of them occasionally or constantly aren't. Minato's old teammates are a prime example of successful shinobi who break a lot of rules about being successful shinobi; Taiki and Hanako are very emotional, not at all objective, and phrase things like (extremely overdramatic) human beings.

Most shinobi can't help but be at least a little unprofessional in their mission reports. There's always something, like underlying annoyance over a mission being misranked, or sarcastic comments on how their teammate did something that just worked _so_ well, or a bit of gleefulness because they just pulled off a brand new jutsu or move for the first time and it was _so_ great and/or badass.

Minato knows that his report after he first successfully pulled off the Hiraishin on a mission was nearly unbearable to read. Jiraiya used the paper to smack him upside the head for the next week to try and get him to stop grinning like a lunatic.

Orochimaru is a good example of a shinobi who lets his moods impact his reports. According to Jiraiya, Orochimaru once wrote a mission report after the store ran out of his favorite shampoo and the desk-shinobi wouldn't come out from under their desks for hours. Minato's not sure he believes that, but... well, then he takes a good look at the Snake Sannin's foul moods and flawless hair, and decides that maybe his sensei's not kidding.

Kakashi's reports, adhering absolutely perfectly to the code, have none of these things. His extremely detailed mission reports sound like they were written by a machine and _then_ had all the personality sucked out of them; his mission reports sound like someone reading a dictionary in complete monotone; his mission reports read like no one had ever told him what a comma or an emotion is. They're so perfect to the rules, utterly bland and so dreary, that desk-shinobi have broken their noses from falling asleep mid-report.

Seriously, Minato's not kidding, no matter what his sensei thinks. Kakashi's reports are really, actually _that_ boring. The Head Desk-Shinobi brought Minato to his office in a secret part of the Hokage Tower, made Minato read one of Kakashi's reports for the first time, and Minato just slid down his chair until he fell on the floor, and then lay there feeling like he would expire from the dullness being inflicted on his soul.

 _Oh god, it's so boring._

He doesn't understand how Kakashi can even _write_ the things without falling asleep.

It's kind of incredible, though. Kakashi really is a genius for managing to make dangerous missions and battles to the death actually boring enough to put a shinobi to sleep. Enemy-nin couldn't even use Kakashi's mission reports for information because their eyes would glaze over just trying to read those dry, stale, full-but-empty sentences.

It's so bad that Inoichi once said to Minato that they use Kakashi's reports as an interrogation tool in the T&I Basement – torture through sheer boredom – though it's difficult finding shinobi able to actually read the reports to their prisoners in the first place.

Minato is pretty sure that was a joke. Pretty sure.

According to the Head Desk-Shinobi after Minato was done reading, something had to be done before somebody seriously injures themselves trying to read Kakashi's reports or all the desk-shinobi quit to save themselves. And the Psychology Department had already washed their hands of this, because they knew that there was no way Kakashi would ever come near their department.

They'd fought with him before. They lost. _Badly._

If they had to go after that boy again, then they had _conditions._

Minato then tried to argue that the reports weren't his problem because there was technically nothing wrong with them, but the Head Desk-Shinobi just looked at him flatly and said that, if Minato felt that way, then surely he would have no trouble processing all of Kakashi's reports for them.

 _NO,_ Minato's brain shrieked defensively, and that was that _._

So Minato tried to explain the problem to Kakashi, but Kakashi just didn't understand what was wrong with his reports. And in that moment of incomprehension, Minato knew that to get through to the boy, they'd have to change Konoha's Shinobi Code, which the Council would _never_ let fly, or Minato would have to resort to drastic measures to get Kakashi to show some personality in his reports.

He considered calling in Kushina, but that was too drastic.

So he called in his old kunoichi teammate.

Mori Hanako answered his call with pleasure and excitement, showing up to meet Team Seven at their favorite training ground the day after Minato called her in. Kakashi had never met Minato's old teammates, since Minato went out for reunions, and was wary because of how Minato had spoken in passing of them, but Obito and Rin were excited about it.

"Minato! It's good to see you!" Hanako declared happily, looking like joining her family's troupe and becoming a tokubetsu-jounin suited her. Today, she was thankfully only dressed like a movie starlet and not anything truly ridiculous; Rin and Obito looked wowed.

"Hanako!" Minato answered, hoping somewhat desperately that this did not end in utter disaster or interpretive dance. "How's Taiki?"

Hanako beaming smile was nearly blinding. "He's Mori Taiki now! The family loves him and his Creative Spirit is soaring beautifully," she answered proudly, practically aglow with love for her husband. "We're taking him on his first tour of the countries soon; he's going to be very popular with the noble circles, I can tell already!"

"Er, that's... fantastic," Minato answered, wondering what in the world was wrong with noble circles.

"But never mind my boasting," Hanako continued, waving a hand as though pushing all of the world's madness and blindness over Taiki's poetry away. "You've called me for help. How can I help you?"

Minato wordlessly handed her one of Kakashi's reports.

Hanako read it silently, her eyes quickly but thoroughly going through the lines. To her credit, she did not fall asleep, her eyes did not glaze over, and her expression only changed to go from curious to incredibly solemn. Once she was done, she looked up, and Minato had never seen a person look so somber and serious.

"I see," she said, looking over towards Minato's team. "This is very troubling."

Minato nodded, then looked over. "Kakashi! Come here, please."

Kakashi warily but obediently came to stand next to Minato and Hanako. "Yes?"

"This is my old genin teammate," Minato introduced. "I think you could learn something from her."

"Hello, Kakashi-kun," Hanako said, bending down so she could be at face-level with the troubling chuunin. "I am Mori Hanako, a tokubetsu-jounin specializing in infiltration."

"Hatake Kakashi," Kakashi answered curiously. "Chuunin."

At this point in time, things seemed to be going well to Minato's eyes.

"Your sensei has asked me to speak with you because there is something very troubling about your mission reports that reveals a deep upset into your soul."

Kakashi looked very confused.

At this point in time, Minato spotted a glint in his teammate's eye and suddenly realized this may have been a massive mistake, but he had no idea how to call if off. There was no way to stop Mori Hanako once she'd already gotten started.

Hanako nodded fiercely. "You are deep in the hold of the Uncreative Ideals made by the Money-Focused Motivations that are plaguing our beautiful forests!" she declared. "I must break this hold and help your suffering soul, freeing your Creative Spirit so that your may join the Unified and Pure Artistic Soul of Konoha and soar truthfully towards Freedom!"

Kakashi blanched. "No, thank you," he said immediately.

Instead of ignoring this and starting an hour-long rant like Minato expected her to, Hanako gave Kakashi an odd look then and stood to her full height, studying the boy consideringly.

"Short and cool response," Hanako noted.

She reached out and poked at Kakashi's hair and mask, while Kakashi and Minato (and Obito and Rin) stared incredulously at her.

"Hip style," she said.

Minato had never before experienced such incredible regret as he felt in that moment when Hanako obviously came to a sudden and gleeful realization. That was when he knew for certain that he'd made a terrible mistake. His old genin teammate pointed at Kakashi, beaming brightly, and declared,

"You're my young and blossoming Cousin Gai's Eternal Rival!"

That was as far as their progress got.

Now, Kakashi is up a tree and won't come down.

Minato is attempting to convince his student to get out of the tree, something that took a lot of effort for Minato to convince Hanako to leave to him. Unfortunately, since he can't be everywhere at once, Hanako is now conversing with the innocent and vulnerable Obito and Rin, so Minato has to get Kakashi to stop clinging to the branches _fast._

"Kakashi, _please_ come down."

"No," the tree says sullenly.

"Don't make me come up there," Minato tries.

A kunai suddenly lands an inch from Minato's toes.

"I will defend myself," the tree replies.

Minato glances over to where Hanako is dramatically lecturing Obito and Rin on something or rather, with graceful hand movements that will probably become interpretive dance within the next ten minutes. Once they reach that point, Minato will have to grab his students and run for it.

Rin's thought process is easy to read. Over the past five minutes, she has obviously gone from 'Oh, cool! A kunoichi who used to be on sensei's genin team! I bet she's cool!' to 'This is... um... interesting? Is this a test? Are we being tested? Or is she just... slightly... weird?' to 'This lady is weird, sensei; weeeeird. Why are you doing this to us? What did we do? Save us, sensei!'

Obito, also easy to read, on the other hand, has gone from 'Oh, cool! Sensei had teammates? I bet she's awesome and super nice! Just like Sensei _and_ Rin!' to 'I'm still _way_ excited about this, but I'm also kinda confused? Super confused! Because I have nooooo idea what the heck this lady is talking about, but _wow,_ it sounds super exciting!' to 'Still super excited about this because this lady is super excited about things, even if she is _definitely_ crazy. But that's okay, because I'm cool with crazy and sometimes crazy is kinda cool!'

Minato belatedly remembers that Obito actually likes the strange boy – who is apparently Hanako's cousin and that explains _so much –_ who has proclaimed himself to be Kakashi's Eternal Rival whether Kakashi actually wants to be or not. Obito likes the boy's enthusiasm and dedication, and also how he annoys the hell out of Kakashi.

Minato needs to get Hanako away from Obito _right now_ before Obito is infected and Konoha is permanently doomed to _Obito's_ melodrama.

They don't need another Hanako. They already have her cousin too. And she's going to have kids, probably, with _Taiki._ That's bad enough. The only reason the village is still standing is probably because those children haven't been born yet and the Mori family is always going on performance tours to spy on and assassinate people.

"- so if you embrace your Creative Spirit," Hanako is saying now, "you can fly with the Unified and Pure Artistic Soul of Konoha, as true and free as the stars themselves, blazing a trail for the Uncreative to follow in your path to Universal Justice!"

Minato puts his head in his hands and groans. At this rate, he's going to become a hermit like sensei.

"Sensei," the tree whimpers plaintively. "Why did you bring _her_ here? And what does she have to do with my mission reports?"

Minato thinks about how he should phrase this before finally deciding: "Kakashi, your reports are so perfect to the Code that they're boring people to sleep. _Some_ personality has to give. She's here to help you change that."

"I don't need her for that!" the tree insists firmly. "I can do it on my own!"

"But I already told you to and you _didn't,_ " Minato points out.

The tree pauses, then promises, "I will! I don't know how to, but I will!"

Minato sighs. "It's not hard, Kakashi, just... be a little less professional. Spend a few pages talking about your teammates, express what an awesome sensei I am, explain how bad the food was, talk about your feelings some." The disdain from the tree is practically palpable now and Minato frowns. "Hand them in late; make spelling mistakes; I don't care what you do, just do _something_ to make you seem _not_ like the Konoha Shinobi Code come to life."

"...That shouldn't be a bad thing... and it's not a problem," the tree said sullenly. "They would have sent the Pysch-nin after me if there was really a problem."

"Kakashi, that's because the Psych Department is demanding S-rank pay for bringing you in."

The tree doesn't say anything, but it looks incredibly smug.

"That's not a good thing, Kakashi."

"...Fine," the tree spits finally. "I'll start being more... unprofessional."

Minato's shoulders go slack with relief. "Good," he says. "I'll hold you to that."

"Hmph."

"I will," Minato insists, crossing his arms to show just how serious he is about this. If he has to read another report that makes him want to claw his own eyes out or gnaw his own hands off again, he might actually do it. "Or Hanako is getting a chuunin assigned to her for the foreseeable future."

Kakashi actually falls out of the tree, landing with a thump. Then he flops his silver hair out of the way and stares at Minato with what Minato perceives, under that mask of his, to be unimaginable horror. Minato saw enough of that kind of expression because of Taiki that he can recognize it at twenty paces from just an eyebrow.

"Sensei, you _wouldn't,_ " Kakashi says.

"Oh, I would," Minato promises darkly. "I really would."

Kakashi gasps. "But, sensei, you said you don't believe in punishing your students!"

"It's not punishment, Kakashi," Minato returns evenly. What was that term that the Sandaime Hokage and Jiraiya had used when Minato first started to realize the true hellishness of his team's paperwork and exactly what he was in for...? The one right after Minato accused them of punishing him somehow...? Oh, right. "It's a learning experience, for improving your perspective on life."

Kakashi stares for ten whole seconds, then says, "Bullshit."

"Language, Kakashi," Minato admonishes gleefully. Is this feeling why Jiraiya made them run so many laps around Konoha? Punishing students feels great; he should do this more often. "I think I need to call Hanako back over here so she can help you improve your perspective on life."

"SENSEI, NO! _PLEASE!"_

In the end, Hanako leaves after being told that the Money-Focused Motivations' hold on Kakashi has started to break and he is in a very vulnerable place right now. She stands at the bottom of the tree that he climbed up again when she made to approach him and wishes him a Bright Creative Spirit, then bids farewell to Rin and Obito, who look subtly relieved and disturbingly starry-eyed respectively.

"Come back and visit us!" Obito yells after her, and then ducks and yelps as Kakashi just starts throwing pebbles at him repeatedly. "What is _wrong_ with you, Bakashi? She's _nice! OW_! Ow, ow, ow!"

Thankfully, Kakashi's mission reports do improve. They're still very, very, _very_ boring, but they're getting better with practice and nobody's getting their nose broken from suddenly falling asleep at their desk. Kakashi is still deeply against being unprofessional and doesn't really know how not to be, but he's willing to do absolutely anything to stop Minato from calling Hanako back to continue helping Kakashi improve his perspective on life.

Kakashi's first attempt at normality was honestly mildly disturbing -

' _It was rainy. I don't mind rain.'_ (Entire rest of report continues as deathly dull regular.)

 _-_ but Minato feels that any progress at all is a good amount of progress, although he's willing to bet that future attempts will be equally disturbing and the desk-shinobi are going to raise a fuss about it. But Kakashi even managed to hand his mission report in two minutes past the deadline that would declare it late! Minato took them all out for ramen, he was so proud of his adorable student for giving himself some paperwork flaws.

Late!

Who knew Kakashi had it in him?

* * *

oOo

* * *

END

* * *

oOo

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The next part in the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series is "Team Kakashi vs. Paperwork", featuring Kakashi facing the culminating consequences of Konoha's madness as jounin-sensei of Team Seven. If it cannot yet be found on my FF account, then it and the rest of the series can be found on AO3.


End file.
